


body & soul

by pyrites, verboseDescription



Series: hand in hand [5]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Autistic Jon, Bisexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gen, Gender Identity, Indian Jon, Jewish Character, Jewish Jon, Jon Sims Bi Pride January 2021, Nonbinary Jon, OCD Jon, Pre-Canon, TL;DR - Approaching gender through your culture is something that can be so joyful.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrites/pseuds/pyrites, https://archiveofourown.org/users/verboseDescription/pseuds/verboseDescription
Summary: (By that time, he’d come closer to a decision about beautiful words and whether he deserved one. Georgie had found hers in a book, through community and friendship, so why couldn’t he find his the same way? Even if he turned out not to be the other side of her coin, even if he didn’t claimone word —he could still find himself in the story they tell. Bria bi’ fnei atzmah. A created being of its own.It’s been a long time since he’s thought about himself this way.)v. culture
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Original Character(s)
Series: hand in hand [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095512
Comments: 29
Kudos: 59
Collections: GerryTitan verse, bi jon sims celebration





	body & soul

**Author's Note:**

> fifth installment for the [jon sims bi pride event](https://jonsimsbipride.tumblr.com/)! yes, i know it's late. don't worry about it. this is for the culture prompt, but it's actually about gender through a jewish lens!
> 
> special edition, too: angel @[ofdreamsanddoodles](https://ofdreamsanddoodles.tumblr.com/) co-wrote this with me, using one of my favorite OCs of his! GTCU followers, see if you recognize who it is. :'-) he's responsible for that character's skype messages!

───── ✿ ─────

His hair isn’t quite long enough to pin it up with these combs anymore. Jon hasn’t kept it any longer than his jawline in years, but it was at least to his shoulders when he’d played Florence in _Chess._ When he’d _almost_ played Florence in _Chess._

That was probably the primary reason their director had let him audition, come to think of it. The minute he opened his mouth, everyone in the audience would be alerted to the subversion, but until that moment, he could _look_ feminine enough from the back of the house. It gave him just long enough to _almost_ fool someone out there, to _belong_ in the evening gown. It was the only natural part of him that could lend itself to the costume. That he could keep when he took it off.

So, he didn’t cut it right away. No, that came later, with a different role on a different stage that he thinks by now he’s fallen through the trapdoor of.

He can’t think about trapdoors. He can’t think about trapdoors, or he’ll never stop thinking about trapdoors. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.

But he doesn’t want to think about beaded combs, either, or t-shirts with his name printed on the back. He’s worn it to sleep enough times that he almost forgets to read it anymore, to tumble down memory lane every time he grabs it out of his drawer to toss on. The hairpin is different, like everything else in this box. It’s meant to make him remember something. Everything here has a story.

There isn’t much left inside. Jon sets the combs down with all the other hair accessories, shifting now through the bigger items in the shoebox that give it most of its weight. The only other _gift_ in here isn’t one he received in person.

───── ✿ ─────

With his dissertation up in smoke, Jon had too much free time on his hands to not spend at least some of it on the computer. No one could really begrudge him for turning to games and forums to keep himself busy. And hadn’t everyone had that phase at some point or another? He wasn’t so deep in denial that he couldn’t identify his own depression. Medically speaking, that was the obvious explanation. It was why, alongside the financial corner that unemployment backed him into, he had moved back home to Bournemouth to get back on his feet. 

The allure of the internet was ambiguity. Anonymously absorbing information that might not have _been_ accessible if he only ever relied on libraries to find it, because so much of it had to come from _people._ And Jon was in no state to be around people if he couldn’t keep the bone-deep bitterness off his face even when he was touring people around the dinosaur exhibits that he loved so much. Using a cane wasn’t _shameful,_ no, but it did hurt. He’d only made it from September to October before he cracked and resigned, effectively sabotaging his ability to pay rent and keep up with _Colin._

So it was back to Bournemouth, all winter. Back to dadima and her quiet concern, wordless in what he _knew_ by adulthood to just be a mutual case of autism and a lifetime of traumatic loss but that he _still felt_ like the weight of water pressure rising around him whenever they occupied the same room. And so he stayed in his own room, on the second story where the windows couldn’t break to let the ocean flood inside and her humming was only a distant echo through the floor.

He needed an escape. Even if he was there to recover, even if he _wanted_ to be there because he _missed_ her and he loved her and he was terrified and hurt and falling apart and she was willing to hold him together when he had the courage to _ask,_ he still needed to be somewhere else. Be _someone_ else, for as long as he could play the part.

Meeting Basil on Runescape had led to talking to Basil on Steam had led to talking to Basil on _Skype_ had led to actually considering Basil a friend. Jon had collected a few of them over the autumn season, but there were only so many openly nonbinary Sephardi Jews in their clan. Only one person at all whose sore misreading of the emphasis in _“DimetroJon”_ made his heart race with pure euphoria. Enough to never correct it. Enough to imagine it was what he’d meant all along.

> **bbspic3** : dimmy!!! hey!
> 
> **bbspic3** : okay coming out twice feels SUPER WEIRD but you were really cool about using they/them and youre like, probably my favorite person on my steam friend list that i cant just NOT tell you this.
> 
> **bbspic3** : im going by xe/xir now! i havent been using them for that long but hearing people use them for me already feels like 🥰🥰🥰 so i wanted to share it with you! idk if youve ever had someone use neopronouns b4 but its just xe instead of they & xir instead of their! pretty fun right??

> **dimetrojon** : Oh! Basil that’s
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Really nice of you to say? I’m touched that you trust me enough to tell me this. Thank you ❤️
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I’ve never had anyone ask me to use neopronouns for them before, no, but it shouldn’t be that difficult an adjustment, should it? Especially considering all of our correspondence is in writing. So, it’d just be, uh
> 
> **dimetrojon** : “Xe picked up xir clothes from the laundromat” and such, then?

> **bbspic3** : yup!!! you got it! :DD
> 
> **bbspic3** : and hey! youre the one who made yourself so easy to talk to! of course im gonna trust you!

> **dimetrojon** : Good to know! I’ll keep this in mind and won’t forget. :)
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Asdfghjkl
> 
> **dimetrojon** : That really means a lot, I feel the same way about you.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Um. That said, could I maybe ask a question? Nothing invasive I promise I’m just curious about something. Thinking.

> **bbspic3** : sure! whats up??

> **dimetrojon** : Um
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Okay, um, how did you come to this decision? Rather, where did you first see pronouns like that as an option, and then decide they were right for you?
> 
> **dimetrojon** : If this is rude just tell me to shut up it’s okay

> **bbspic3** : its not rude!! its a good question!
> 
> **bbspic3** : hmmmm....
> 
> **bbspic3** : so like the reason i was going by she/her online at first was bc i wanted something about me to be more fem when i uh. wasnt. and when i realized i was nb i kinda just wanted to make sure everyone knew that about me because i was so happy i figured that out but i dont know if it ever really fit as well as i wanted it to
> 
> **bbspic3** : & idk if i told you about my friend kira but weve basically been going through every book about gender we could find lol. they were the one who kind of got me thinking about jewish genders and etc
> 
> **bbspic3** : idk if you know about like aylonit or saris but thats basically ftm & mtf
> 
> **bbspic3** : well ok saris adam is mtf saris hamah is just intersex i think
> 
> **bbspic3** : my point is that i saw that and kinda went.... huh!! because these are still labels ppl are using TODAY! its not suuuuper common but if THEY can just go “hey, my gender is that i’m trans, but in a cool jewish way” why was i so convinced i had to be just nonbinary? if i wanted a set of pronouns that felt fem and if i wanted a set of pronouns that were gender neutral or whatever i could just DO that. i dont have to be stuck with they/them bc thats an actual english word. this isnt ladino!!! its not my peoples language! i shouldnt be stuck using a word i dont care about just bc thats what yt ppl say a gendery word SHOULD be!

> **dimetrojon** : Asdfghjkl
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I need a second to collect my thoughts. Hang on.

_(It takes more than a second to collect thoughts like these. He must have made Basil wait close to ten whole minutes before he had the words to respond, and back then it had felt like an eternity. Jon_ wishes _it only took ten minutes to gather thoughts this big nowadays, or that thoughts about gender were still the biggest thoughts he had to contend with.)_

> **dimetrojon** : Okay. I’ve collected at least some of them. I think. Maybe somewhat, probably.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I... can’t believe I made it this far without thinking about the Jewish genders? I’m a bad Jew.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Or bad at gender. Probably both. Definitely both lately especially.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : And I’m babbling now? Sorry
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Um! Another question: when you were reading up the other ones, um, tumtum and androgynos, do you get the same hard lines I just did on the first page of Google? About how they’re exclusively intersex terms, even in the modern day, despite how
> 
> **dimetrojon** : How everything sort of evolves over time and a lot of the point is that there’s never any singular answer but you still have to pay respects to the source of something because
> 
> **dimetrojon** : And I’m not saying I’m anything one way or the other of course I mean the point of this is that I’m probably nothing like always
> 
> **dimetrojon** : But I’ve. Struggled for a long time with, identifying myself in any way, mostly because. I’ll be very honest, the western terminology never felt RIGHT I would get questions all the time in uni about whether I’m this or that and I never had anything to say but “no, I’m not, stop asking.”
> 
> **dimetrojon** : But I have to be something, don’t I? Eventually?
> 
> **dimetrojon** : And looking at these, I’m. At least somewhat drawn to one of them, or at least the implication of what it meant socially, but if it’s not something I’m allowed to tamper with, I don’t want to. Which means, my question is, I guess,
> 
> **dimetrojon** : What would I say instead?
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I. Am so sorry that was so long oh G-d

> **bbspic3** : dimmy. were jewish. if a conversation doesnt take three hours longer than it should were doing something wrong. dont apologize for rambling lmao
> 
> **bbspic3** : i think tumtum is intersex only but timtum ISNT? tbh i didnt look too much into that so if not knowing makes you a bad jew, so am i! but i guess thats kind of the most ““modern”” version of what youre looking for since its a yiddish word but i tried looking it up again to double check the meaning since i heard a few definitions somewhere but google keeps asking me if im thinking of TIM TAMS. no!! im not!!
> 
> **bbspic3** : i dont think you really have to be anything honestly. i think im starting to know my gender pretty well and its not always a feeling i can put into words its just a part of me. my gender is dying my hair green so i can make jokes about being a plant. your gender is whatever you want it to be!
> 
> **bbspic3** : youre saying nothing like its a bad thing, but it doesnt HAVE to be. you dont have to be like “oh, my gender sucks, its a black hole and we have to fix it NOW.” it can just be like... a clean slate! or an empty chalkboard
> 
> **bbspic3** : also like. just checking but you HAVE heard of agender right

> **dimetrojon** : Okay hey I’m not THAT deeply wedged under a rock I have heard of agender I just don’t like it
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I mean it’s. Fine? And would be EASY I suppose, but I just.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Whenever I’ve thought of using it for myself, I just get squeamish. In a way, it almost defines itself in conjunction WITH the binary I do so despise, which is... unappealing to me, personally.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : The idea of using something more rooted in MY culture than someone else’s is. Speaking to me a little bit more clearly than that ever has. If that makes sense. Which I suppose it should, given. Everything you just said before about your own self.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Researching timtum now and the first result just defines it as “a simple or stupid child.” Very promising so far.

> **bbspic3** : oh so i should have been using it instead, is what youre saying

> **dimetrojon** : Wait what

> **bbspic3** : that was a joke!! im calling myself dumb

> **dimetrojon** : Oh. Oh! Hey no
> 
> **dimetrojon** : If anything, that just there proves I should be using it. >_<
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Hypothetically speaking. In terms of the joke.

> **bbspic3** : its okay dimmy you dont have to add disclaimers on ur jokes lol
> 
> **bbspic3** : and youre not dumb!!! tone is just hard on the internet

> **dimetrojon** : I suppose. But the disclaimer was less about the joke, and more about
> 
> **dimetrojon** : Okay you know that you're the only person in the world who calls me “Dimmy?” Or any other name aside my birth name, for that matter.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I don’t even know what pronouns you’ve been using for me in your head, but chances are you’re also the only one using them, too.

> **bbspic3** : i kinda just defaulted to they/them since you never offered anything up tbh
> 
> **bbspic3** : i... im glad i could offer you something new? but im sorry you dont have anyone else who would do the same

> **dimetrojon** : Asdfghjkl they/them is good, thank you.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : It’s not that I don’t have anyone else! I know plenty of people who would have done it for me, and a few who still would. I just never knew what to offer up instead. I never imagined the stupid chat handle I’ve had for so long would get me a name I like better than my own lol.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I’m! Okay we may be very Jewish yes but I DO feel like I just bodily tackled you out from under the spotlight when you were all excited about your pronouns I don’t mean to make this all about me, I just. You said some things I’d never heard anybody say and I like learning.

> **bbspic3** : okay, good! they is here to stay
> 
> **bbspic3** : and yeah, i get that. i know a few ppl who still call me emma because thats a spice girls name. easier to go by a different name when you dont have to pick it i guess
> 
> **bbspic3** : you didnt tackle me!!! i told you my piece and you went “wow!!! what an expert! teach me your gender ways!” honestly it feels kind of great. and you DID kind of ask me to talk about myself so its not like this is super one sided or anything. and youre my friend! i like helping you learn! :3

> **dimetrojon** : Yes, I? Think that’s it exactly.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : I like your “dime, Dimmy” joke asdfghjkl.

_(Dime,_ like “tell me” in Spanish. _“dime, dimmy, are you an ‘eats a matzah sandwich’ jew or are you normal?” “dime, dimmy, if i was a dinosaur which one would i be?”_ _“dime, dimmy, are you really okay?” Tell me –_ Trust _me.)_

> **dimetrojon** : And the fact that it’s actually an Indian name! I looked it up once, and it means “soft light.” I didn't want to say it when I first found that out because I wanted to just act like it had always been my name, not something I only discovered through you.
> 
> **dimetrojon** : But it makes me happy. So, thank you for that. And for indulging me with this conversation, I appreciate it.

> **bbspic3** : it’s just got a fun feel to it! very stimmy
> 
> **bbspic3** : also WOW thats cool!! it makes me feel kind of proud that i could give you that. it sounds like a gentle name. i think that's perfect for you
> 
> **bbspic3** : and like i said its no problem! tbh its really great to have like. a jewish friend who GETS it? a lot of ashkie jew stuff isnt super relatable to me but everyone always assumes i should know what theyre talking about when THEY rarely understand ME. but the questions you ask feel different somehow. like youre talking to the real me. so, thank YOU for that. it makes me happy to hear were giving each other such great gifts ❤️

> **dimetrojon** : The Dimmy Stim™...
> 
> **dimmydino** : Well, I’ve found MY new echolalia phrase for next Gregorian year. And my new display name. :3

> **bbspic3** : awww PERFECT!

> **dimmydino** : I hagev to paiuse and flaap brb
> 
> **dimmydino** : Okay hello. It is incredibly fortunate that we have the same taste in video games, though, yes. I’ve got a... sort of patchwork relationship to my Jewishness, lol, so I feel much the same way RE: what’s relatable and what isn’t. Which actually brings up one more question, last one I promise but
> 
> **dimmydino** : Are you out to your family...? My grandmother doesn’t even know I’m bi, I have no idea how she’d respond to anything having to do with gender. Never having the words always made it that much more unfathomable.

> **bbspic3** : uhhhhh kind of?
> 
> **bbspic3** : ngl the initial conversation was kind of? hard?? i dont think they were trying to be mean but it was clear they didnt really GET IT like i wanted them to and i didnt know how to make them understand so after a while i kinda just..... stopped talking about it
> 
> **bbspic3** : but theyre getting better!! its been a couple of years since then and now when i call home theyre like “oh did you meet any cute boys at college?” or whatever. i dont think they understand that i like girls too yet but theyre trying! it just took a while for them to really absorb what i was saying
> 
> **bbspic3** : now heres a question for YOU
> 
> **bbspic3** : you said youre moving out soon yeah??

> **dimmydino** : Ah, yes I am. I moved back home after an. Accident. When I was living on my own. Coincidentally when I was partaking in Gender for a theatre production, which I think. Set me back quite a lot.
> 
> **dimmydino** : But one of my other cast members, who happens to be a trans man, was poking around his contact list for third flatmate back in that city and. I don’t think I can live with my dadima much longer.
> 
> **dimmydino** : I’ve burdened her enough being here all unemployed and depressed and shut in my room.
> 
> **dimmydino** : She doesn’t know I was Gender in that musical. Lol.

> **bbspic3** : oh living with trans ppl is GREAT highly recommend. its a lot easier to Gender when theres someone gendering with you
> 
> **bbspic3** : you should give me your address!!! (if youre comfortable) come on!!! dime dimmy!

> **dimmydino** : Um! Why?

> **bbspic3** : maaaaybe im just thinking of a very cool present i could give you. you can think of it as a housewarming gift!
> 
> **bbspic3** : or a mimouna gift! depends on when it gets there i guess

> **dimmydino** : Asdfghjkl Basil you don't have to send me anything, it's really alright.

> **bbspic3** : but i want to!!
> 
> **bbspic3** : i know you said that we should be celebrating me switching pronouns but you have a lot to celebrate too!! it sounds like you’ve been trying really hard to figure yourself out. you telling me all this means youve got one more person out there who knows you. and now that youve told ME maybe you even know what to say to the next person you wanna talk about this to!
> 
> **bbspic3** : so congrats dimmy! im proud of you ❤️

  
  


Giving Basil Amir’s address was marginally easier than giving up dadima’s. Maybe because he already considered it temporary before he even moved in. He didn’t know how long he would be able to stand accepting dadima’s insistence that she cover the rent until he was properly back on his feet. Jon knew he couldn’t fight her on it. They both knew he never meant to stay forever, and he wouldn’t find a steady job in London _until_ he was back there. It wasn’t as if she spent her money on much else. The humiliation of it, at least, motivated him to snatch up the first desk job at a library he could apply for.

He’d gone home to recover in a place he knew wouldn’t fall out from under him, to clean his slate and start over. Dadima fretted in her way — from a distance, cautious of how he’d changed but still eager to cook with him when he mustered the will to come downstairs. Sometimes it was wonderful, and exactly as comforting as he’d hoped it would be.

But Bournemouth had stayed the same, and one thing that Jon could not change was his need to be somewhere else. Someone else.

He did go back to visit her for Pesach. He owed her that much.

_(By that time, he’d come closer to a decision about beautiful words and whether he deserved one. Georgie had found hers in a book, through community and friendship, so why couldn’t he find his the same way? Even if he turned out not to be the other side of her coin, even if he didn’t claim_ one word — _he could still find himself in the story they tell. Bria bi’ fnei atzmah. A created being of its own._

_It’s been a long time since he’s thought about himself this way.)_

When he returned back to Amir’s flat the day after, there was a package for him. Nearly two months late for a housewarming present, but precisely on time for Mimouna. He let Amir and Veronica watch as he opened the box to find a set of three small ivory candles, only two of which painted with simple mehndi designs. Underneath them was a note explaining that Basil and Kira had spent some time painting one each, and the undecorated one was for Jon to finish himself with the spare henna cones in the box. 

Between the candles and the notes, it was easy to tell whose hands they’d each come from. In the center of a separate, lineless card was a Ladino proverb in Basil’s shaky, arthritic calligraphy:

───── ✿ ─────

**Author's Note:**

> ENORMOUS thank you to angel for letting me borrow his OC! you can read about xir in [bailey school kids](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136642/chapters/58115032), which remains one of my all time favorite fics ever! read it or else actually!
> 
> \+ [angel did art of jon and basil](https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/641975612815343616/my-oc-basil-jon-for-jonsimsbiprides-culture)! yay!  
> \+ [these are a close estimate for the candles that basil and kira decorated](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/487082081130905611/805947553027063848/17_thumb25255B225255D.png)!  
> \+ if you're curious about the jewish genders, i recommend [this essay, "how i met the tumtum"](http://transtorah.org/PDFs/How_I_Met_the_Tumtum.pdf) and [this zine that my friends and i found from 1999](http://www.qzap.org/v5/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1552) that jon and basil likely found in their research, too! there is debate about whether certain terms are open for perisex trans people to use, and so while some say they've evolved with modern times and are accessible, i'm playing it safe and saying that jon doesn't actually identify as tumtum/timtum but that reading about these experiences has helped him to step away from western terminology in general, and feel more comfortable as a unique individual with no obligation to use english words to describe his identity.  
> \+ the "beautiful word" that georgie found is "butch," yes, and YES, jon did tentatively experiment with the femme identity (as a 21-22 yr old transfem nb bi person in a relationship with a butch, surrounded by butches and femmes who welcomed him into the fold - hello) and it just didn't fit! it's okay to question, and decide something isn't for you.  
> \+ yes, jon uses the same meticulous home row "keysmash" every time.  
> \+ and for any other GTCU followers reading this, yep! i'm going to actually go and edit TSP just a little bit to make it clear that he did go back to live with her for a few months there after his accident, and then everything will still be 100% congruent. which means - yes, jon WAS internet friends with someone that gerry ended up rooming with in pittsburgh. awkward.
> 
> [[jon sims bi pride tumblr](http://jonsimsbipride.tumblr.com/)] | [[my tumblr](http://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/)] | [[ GTCU masterpost](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/14KlgPfOb16ocGj8k0QrElw6UY0SqoNeH2yTj_zQ31bA/edit#)]


End file.
